Sole survivor fights to clear WWII shadow

The sole survivor of an Australian air crew wrongly blamed for a naval disaster near the Solomon Islands in World War Two is determined to keep up the fight to have the history books corrected.

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: For more than 70 years American historians have wrongly blamed an Australian air crew for contributing to a Second World War naval disaster.

Twelve hundred allied sailors died in the battle of Savo Island in the Solomons.

The sole survivor of the air crew is now 94-years-old and he's never stopped fighting to have history corrected.

Adam Harvey reports.

(Archival newsreel footage in background)

ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: August 1942 - desperate days in World War 2. After the disaster at Pearl Harbour, US forces are finally striking back against the Japanese at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

EXCERPT NEWSREELS (Archival): Under cover of the fleet's concentrated fire, the marines land. The attack took the Nips completely by surprise but Japanese reinforcements are on their way and the allied fleet stands by.

ADAM HARVEY: The marines have a toehold but they're vulnerable to counter-attack. An Australian air crew is on the lookout - four young men, average age 22.

ERIC GEDDES: When we joined up we became friends and we were friends for the rest of our lives. I'm the sole survivor and the last man standing.

ADAM HARVEY: Eric Geddes is radio operator and gunner. His battle didn't end in 1945.

For 70 years he's been fighting a terrible slur against his crew.

ERIC GEDDES: If I printed in tomorrow's newspaper that you were responsible for the deaths of 1,023 sailors, how would you feel?

We were angry and we couldn't believe that this could be. We just couldn't believe it.

ADAM HARVEY: Eric Geddes and the crew of the Lockheed Hudson were part of an RAAF squadron at Milne Bay, in New Guinea.

ERIC GEDDES: They were all low level patrols and our purpose was to gather intelligence about Japanese movements in the area, whether or not they were active or whether they just weren't about or what was happening.

ADAM HARVEY: His immaculate logbook records each patrol, including one on August 8th 1942, after the marines land at Guadalcanal.

ERIC GEDDES: I could nominate that particular event from take-off to landing and I wouldn't miss a trick.

ADAM HARVEY: The Hudson crew tracked north from Milne Bay, over Goodenough Island, and spotted a Japanese convoy steaming towards Guadalcanal.

(to Eric Geddes) How far away were they?

ERIC GEDDES: Well, we didn't need the binoculars to work it out, let's put it that way.

They then sent up two fighters to take care of us so we thought well, we can't stand and fiddle around with these people because we've got to deliver this intelligence. And I pulled out the radio and tried to contact Milne Bay.

ADAM HARVEY: There was no answer. Eric Geddes kept tapping away in Morse Code on his radio transmitter.

ERIC GEDDES: When we arrived back at Milne Bay they were surprised we were back early and the intelligence officer arrived at the end of the runway when we landed. We were debriefed, and we gave them precisely what I've just told you.

ADAM HARVEY: Thanks to the Australians' work, the Allied ships defending Guadalcanal should have known what was coming, but Eric Geddes' warning was not acted upon, with devastating consequences at a place called Savo Island.

The HMAS Canberra was part of the fleet.

EXCERPT NEWSREEL (Archival): Then night, and a counterattack by Japanese warships.

MAC GREGORY, HMAS CANBERRA: I was officer watch on the bridge of Canberra, but we were just sitting there when suddenly this cruiser force of five heavy cruisers, 1 destroyer and two light cruisers suddenly attacked us.

We were out of the war after two and a half, three minutes.

ADAM HARVEY: The Allies were routed. More than 1,000 sailors died. Three US ships and the Canberra were lost.

RICHARD FRANK, ASIAN PACIFIC WAR HISTORIAN: The battle of Savo Island was undoubtedly the most humiliating defeat at sea suffered by the US Navy during the entirety of the Second World War.

ADAM HARVEY: And the Aussies got the blame.

DR CHRIS CLARK, NAVAL HISTORIAN: To the Americans it looked like they hadn't done their job properly and allowed the Japanese to obtain an element of surprise that resulted in such a disastrous outcome.

ADAM HARVEY: Harvard historian Samuel Morrison was commissioned by president Roosevelt to write a history of the Pacific battles and he attributed the Allies' defeat at Savo Island in part to the Australian Hudson crew.

SAMUEL MORRISON: The pilot of this plane, instead of breaking silence to report, as he had orders to do in an urgent case, or returning to base which he could have done in two hours, spent most of the afternoon completing his search mission, came down at Milne Bay, had his tea, and then reported the contact.

MAC GREGORY: He was accused by Morrison, the naval historian, of not breaking silence, of dilly-dallying on the way back to Port Moresby and having his tea before he was debriefed, all of which was complete nonsense.

RICHARD FRANK: We don't really know exactly where Morrison got the notion that the Hudson crew had stopped to have tea before they turned in the report. We do know that he was, like most of the Americans who had been familiar with the operation, was very humiliated by what had happened.

ERIC GEDDES: We were pretty upset about this and disturbed about the situation.

ADAM HARVEY: You can understand why Eric Geddes is still so unhappy more than 70 years later when you come here, to the Australian War Memorial.

Samuel Morrison's 14 volume work on World War II is part of the collection so it's one of the places where his claims about the Hudson crew live on.

Samuel Morrison has long since been proved wrong.

DR CHRIS CLARK: Ship for ship the Japanese had a superior navy and that may be unpalatable to the United States but they were simply out fought.

RICHARD FRANK: Well I would say to Mr Geddes that his mission has been accomplished, through his efforts and also through the work of other historians. The failures that did occur that led to the defeat at Savo Island were multiple and shared many levels, primarily by Americans, and no one now writing about this would single out and certainly write in such demeaning terms about this particular Australian air crew.

ADAM HARVEY: But Eric Geddes wants official US recognition that the Australians did their best.

ERIC GEDDES: My problem is not our history. It's American history, and that has, that has a lot to answer for.

ADAM HARVEY: He's taken his campaign to the top.

ERIC GEDDES: My ambition is that president Obama actually gets to read the letter I wrote to him. I think he's a man who really would understand the truth and facts when he reads them.

And to be respectful of my other three comrades who are no longer here to talk for themselves, I feel that I have the liability of doing this and I suppose the day I drop off the perch will be the day that I'll forget about it.